French president Sarkozy announced a scheme to promote learning English. Sarkozy has trouble with his native tongue and has a limited command of English. His scheme revolves around preschoolers and computers. It won’t work: French students tread water in language classes for years, never progressing towards measurable competence; and French language teaching adores abstraction and hidebound rules.

Le Monde accompanied its report of the presidential scheme with testimony from its readers and bloggers. Their comments are eye-opening. Where and how do French people learn English? Not in the classroom, in class; but at home, while watching “South Park” or “Friends,” reading Harry Potter, or listening to popular music.

On languages, Sarkozy turns out to be more a follower than a leader. What is really happening, today, in French society is more impressive than politicians’ vague hopes for the future. The photo above was taken at a Relay newsstand in a Paris train station. The display window promotes four titles. Remarkably, the books are available in French translation, and also in English. A close look will reveal two lessons: the English-language books are physically smaller than the French translations; and the English-language books are significantly cheaper than the French translations.

All sorts of bizarre allegations are aired in France. Most of the time, the alleged schemes are too lurid and too ham-handed to make sense: a government minister took wads of cash from the L’Oréal heiress; a prime minister orchestrated campaign finance through occult, foreign accounts; a Chinese-born undergraduate pilfered top secrets from an auto part manufacturer during her summer internship. The truthfulness of the allegations generally fails to withstand the test of time, or careful investigation.

The latest bizarre allegation comes from French automaker Renault. It began the new year with a barrage of charges against three senior executives: Michel Balthazard, head of long-term product development; his right-hand man, Bertrand Rochette; and Mathieu Tenenbaum, who co-headed the company’s electric vehicle program. Renault is in the process of terminating the three men, all long-time Renault employees. Renault has also filed a criminal complaint, against persons unknown, alleging espionage, corruption, breach of trust, theft, and concealment.

The allegation is lurid but fails the credibility test. It suggests corporate infighting and turf battles more than industrial espionage. These are the clues that led me to reach this opinion:

• As reported by The Economist, Renault’s chief operating officer, Patrick Pélata, indicated that alleged leaked information concerned Renault’s “business model” and “vehicle architecture”, but not technical secrets, such as battery design. Don’t senior Renault executives talk about these subjects all the time, especially with JV partners, suppliers, and customers?
• Renault commissioned a five-month (!) investigation by a private firm but neglected to inform the French government, which is the also the automaker’s leading shareholder and which has powerful investigatory means at its disposal.
• Renault has backed off from initial reports made to the press. These were lurid and extremely prejudicial: an identified state-owned electric utility in China (!) reportedly made deposits to bank accounts in Liechtenstein and Switzerland (!). The origin and destination of the funds seem inspired by a made-for-television thriller, and there is massive incongruity between the suave secrets allegedly divulged and the crass payment allegedly tendered.
• Allegations reportedly were first made by unsigned letter.

Physicist Enrico Fermi put that question to graduate students. (Decades later, my professor asked the same question to our basic astrophysics class, then explained its pedigree.)

It’s a great question. To answer it, you have to estimate (among other things) the number of households that have a piano and the frequency with which they tune it. If you’re numerically nimble, you can come within an order of magnitude of the factually correct answer.

Variants of this problem exist:

• How many basketballs will fill a city bus?
• How many traffic lights are there in Manhattan?

These are also good tests of numeracy, although they don’t ask the respondent to juggle as many hypotheticals as Fermi’s piano tuner problem.

An urban legend has grown around these puzzles. According to the legend, top employers now routinely ask these questions at interviews. A few years ago, the company most often mentioned was Google; today, it has become Goldman Sachs. Businesses have sprouted to train interviewees to prepare for these kinds of questions.

This urban legend might have some basis in fact: the questions are a good test of numeracy, or at least of an eagerness to approach problems expressed in numbers. Basing hiring decisions on how an interviewee tackles these questions makes more sense than choosing new hires on appearance, including poise during more traditional interview questions.

This urban legend troubles me for what it signals about candidates. I can’t say often or emphatically enough how disappointed I am at candidates’ willingness –even eagerness– to put their résumé in a pile, to get on a long interview line, and to hope that (somehow) they’ll be asked to dance at the ball.

What an illustration of poor numeracy skills! What’s the likelihood that you’ll be selected from a big pool? “Having” the right answer or having been coached at answering are of little hope: all of the semi-finalists at beauty contests (Miss France, Miss America) are attractive, but most go home empty-handed.

Why such pessimism? How can it be squared with other polls that show the French to enjoy superior quality of life and widespread material comfort?

For years, I’ve heard French people –especially outwardly successful people– voice exaggerated caution about future prospects, along the lines of: we’ll be lucky to make it through the winter. After having heard these musings repeatedly and consistently over the years, I discount the pessimism expressed in an opinion poll; or, more exactly, suspect that pessimism points towards a few, distinctly French social tropes or memes.

First among these is a social prohibition against bragging. No one likes a show-off. Accomplishment or success may be prized or cherished, but its holder commits a gaffe if he publicly comments on it. Partly this prohibition expresses modesty, but it is also a prophylactic against envy: as Tocqueville observed, in today’s democratic society, giving voice to good fortune can spark resentment among one’s fellows.

There also seems to be a French folkway, reminiscent of the Icarus story, where the act of foreseeing or expecting great things in the future somehow hobbles or handicaps the doer. Until recently –in living memory– France was an agrarian society, where the land’s yield remained uncertain until harvest. Drought or flood or a heat spell or a cold snap could shatter clever plans, as will be familiar to readers of Pagnol’s Jean de Florette.

Finally, an expression of pessimism also signals anxiety about loss. As Rousseau reasoned, fear off loss can outweigh the pleasure of possession. What was true in France more than 200 years ago remains pertinent today. To some extent, French respondents may express pessimism precisely because they have much to lose.

couverture du magazine Ikea Family Live (hiver 2010)

“Et si vous fixiez vos propres règles?”

Voici la question posée en couverture de Ikea Family Live magazine, publication du magasin suédois éponyme destinée surtout aux consommateurs parents de jeunes enfants en quête d’”idées et inspiration pour la maison”.

Il s’agit d’une question ouverte, un brin provocante tout en gardant le ton bon enfant du magazine et du magasin.

C’est aussi une réponse à l’affirmation de la RATP à bord des bus parisiens : “Si chacun fait ses propres règles, tout se dérègle.”

Il s’agit, pour la RATP, d’un énoncé fermé, vaguement ménaçant, qui n’admet pas de discussion. Bizarrement, c’est aussi un mécanisme à disculper la RATP de dysfonctionnements : l’origine de dérèglements se trouverait auprès des usagers, intempestivement innovateurs.

The Paris transit authority, the RATP, wants to promote civility through a communications campaign aboard its buses.

In a previous post, I joked about the RATP’s seeming inability to see the world through the eyes of its customers, who saw an over-crowded train where the RATP saw an ordinary train.

The RATP’s new campaign is unabashedly philosophical and frankly reactionary, with a tag line that speaks out against making up or living by your own rules.

City buses feature illustrations of this principle. I’d have expected the illustrations to stress the importance of paying when you ride the bus, speaking politely with the driver, abstaining from playing music at loud volumes, or leaving your seat to an infirm passenger.

I was mistaken: the RATP again represents its passengers as problems. In this case, it lashes out against … babies.

The RATP has a point: strollers take up space and end up making a bus crowded.

But the RATP fails at making this point.

Its visuals instead show how babies make life difficult for a working man.

The image that introduced this post shocked me. The four babies are all doing fine, enjoying the bus ride or napping. Their companions –to my eyes, a mother, a father, and a grandmother– are smiling. Everyone is getting on and getting along fine. Then a malcontent enters the scene: a working man. He’s shown to be bothered and inconvenienced.

Bizarrely, the RATP shines its spotlight on and casts its sympathies with this one, solitary traveler; it seems blind to the fact that a bus ride is a happy experience for seven other travelers. The RATP’s tag line reads roughly as: “with strollers, don’t push it”. And the RATP’s solution –strollers subsequent to the second stroller must be folded– doesn’t make life any easier for its youngest passengers or their companions.

The students, about 35 in all, were a diverse bunch, hailing from every continent (Antarctica excepted).

In addition to an exam, each student had to complete a series of exercises, including writing a draft business plan (which other students subsequently critiqued and presented).

The examples I’d used in class had a distinct “Silicon Valley on the Seine” feel, mixing high technology and the European business environment. So two aspects of my students’ work took me by surprise:

First, many students used the freedom of choice they were given to propose a business that centered around food, food preparation, or food delivery. There may have been some groupthink and emulation, but students did not crib from another class (that would have looked into the food industry). The prospect that such proposals would attract venture capital finance took me aback (and made me question my teaching skills). I reached the conclusion that my very international group contained a core group of francophile foodies who had impressed their priorities on their classmates.

Second, many students demonstrated a remarkably democratic sensibility. Among French students, I’ve grown accustomed to a penchant for luxury goods or luxury brands: everyone would like to work for L’Oréal, or Louis Vuitton, or Hermès. But my international students march to a different drummer. Instead of luxury, their plans celebrated the common man (or woman, or family) and took pains to emphasize how accessible their innovation would be. The young people in my class see, as a norm, Ikea or Apple’s iPhone (or its Blackberry competitor): products that are accessible to the greatest number, while remaining distinctive and connoting quality.

This question sparks the drama of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. In Roth’s novel, professor Coleman Silk jokingly compares chronically absent students to ghosts, but his remarks are heard as a slur against people of color, as the absentee students happen to be black.

In English, a “ghost” can also refer to a ghost writer, as in Robert Harris’s political thriller, The Ghost. In French, a ghost writer is called a “nègre“, a word no more pejorative than the English “ghost”. But, in French, “nègre” has all of the ambiguities of “spook” when used to refer to a person.

These ambiguities have led to a month of outrage and protest in France.

As in Philip Roth’s novel, the story began in an unexpected way. Jean-Paul Guerlain, a dapper Parisian born in 1937, appeared on the mid-day national news in France to plug a book, Parfums d’amour (written with Mzrc Lacaze). The book could be titled, in English, Perfumes of Love, or For the Love of Perfume, as Guerlain was for many years the “nose” of the perfumery that bears his family’s name.

Guerlain sold the family business more than a decade ago to luxury conglomerate LVMH, but his memories stay with him. During his interview the news anchor Elise Lucet, a French television personality who looks and talks perfectly like a mom, Guermain made a particular effort to impress.

As he told his tale, years ago Guerlain was smitten by a woman … who didn’t wear perfume.

Undeterred, the perfumer asked her, “What would seduce you, were someone to make you a perfume?” The lady’s reply: jasmine, rose, and sandalwood.

Guerlain wasted no time and flew into action. Thirty-three attempts later, he concocted the fragrance that he would present to the object of his affections, and later to the market under the brand name Samsara.

Guerlain seems to have been enjoying himself. He probably wanted to impress Lucet, so he embroidered. Instead of stating merely that he’d worked hard in his quest to impress, Guerlain said, on national television (my translation, using one of several possible translations of “nègre“):

“For once, I started to work like a spook; but I don’t know if spooks ever worked so hard. Anyway, …”

Mouths dropped. Lucet said nothing, but voices of protests were soon heard.

Through a spokesman, Guerlain said, “I apologize to those who might have been offended by my shocking remarks. My words in no way reflect my profound thoughts, but fell out in a slip that I regret.”

LVMH pointed out that the Guerlain line no longer belongs to the Guerlain family and that Jean-Paul Guerlain no longer works forthe company. This has not stopped protests and pickets, especially at the flagship store on the Champs-Elysées.

Over the past month, it has become a salon commonplace to denounce casual racism, thought to be all too common among moneyed old families. But as in Roth’s tale, I’m not sure this really is the story. For my part, I instead think Guerlain was simply over-eager to please a solicitous journalist, and erred when embroidering his story. And I’m uncomfortable with the premise that one’s slips are more truthful or more revelatory –in sum, more real– than speech that’s thought-out and clearly expressed.

Finally, am I the only one who suspects the deeper problem –if there is one– was rather with the choice of name given to the perfume, as samara describes a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth central to Hinduism and other Eastern religious traditions?

Arthur Andersen was criticized mostly for how its different parts worked as a whole. In addition to auditing, Arthur Andersen sold accounting services and consulted on many business questions. According to critics, an entity that sold advisory services could not be counted on to audit impartially the recipient of its own advice, especially as consulting was more profitable than auditing.

An alumnus of Arthur Andersen has been in the news in France.

Eric Woerth is mayor of Chantilly (a town north of France famous for its stables and horse racing), MP from the 4th district of the Oise, French conservative party treasurer, former budget minister, and current labor minister.

Eric Woerth is also the husband of Florence Woerth, a financial analyst. The details are contested, but according to press reports Eric Woerth orchestrated a meeting between Florence Woerth and money manager Patrice de Maistre. In any case, Florence Woerth soon got a job and Patrice de Maistre soon got a decoration.

Florence Woerth joined Clymène, a money management firm run by Patrice de Maistre that has two unusual features: its sole shareholder and sole client is Liliane Bettencourt, an heiress to the L’Oréal fortune; and it consistently loses money, having suffered losses of more than €100 million from 2000 through 2008.

Patrice de Maistre was inducted into the French Legion of Honor, and received a decoration directly from Eric Woerth. According to press reports, the ceremony to present the decoration had been scheduled originally for November 2007, when Florence Woerth joined Clymène, then was moved to January 2008.

Earlier this summer, there was much talk about conflict of interest.

For former finance minister and free-market conservative Alain Madelin, “This is a situation of conflict of interest, incompatible with the office”.

Eric Woerth contested the point. But he also started talking about a “Chinese Wall”, borrowing a term that investment banks use to describe how they practice underwriting and trading under the same roof. And as this metaphor makes plain, even if the Woerths never talk about their work, they do share a household, supporting one another financially.

Florence Woerth resigned from Clymène, which seemed to undercut her husband’s denial of any problem.

Sales of desktops and portables are roughly even today, but laptops are ascendant; by 2015, desktops may decline to only a small minority of total computer sales.

Of course, how a computer looks is secondary to what it can do and how it is used. The desktop-to-laptop ratio recalls the rotary-to-pushbutton phone ratio.

But there’s more to the story. What I took from Manjoo’s piece was confirmation that a laptop is becoming standard issue: something that almost everyone has, as a matter of course.